Use URI builder in Android or create URL with variables - android

I'm developing an Android app. I need to build a URI for my app to make an API request. Unless there's another way to put a variable in a URI, this is the easiest way I've found. I found that you need to use Uri.Builder, but I'm not quite sure how to. My url is:
http://lapi.transitchicago.com/api/1.0/ttarrivals.aspx?key=[redacted]&mapid=value
My scheme is http, authority is lapi.transitchicago.com, path is /api/1.0, path segment(s) is ttarrivals.aspx, and query string is key=[redacted]&mapid=value.
My code is below:
Intent intent = getIntent();
String value = intent.getExtras().getString("value");
Uri.Builder builder = new Uri.Builder();
builder.scheme("http")
.authority("www.lapi.transitchicago.com")
.appendPath("api")
.appendPath("1.0")
.appendPath("ttarrivals.aspx")
.appendQueryParameter("key", "[redacted]")
.appendQueryParameter("mapid", value);
I understand that I can do URI.add, but how do I integrate it into the Uri.Builder? Should I add everything like URI.add(scheme), URI.add(authority) and so on? Or is that not the way to do it? Also, is there any other easier way to add a variable to a URI/URL?

Let's say that I want to create the following URL:
https://www.myawesomesite.com/turtles/types?type=1&sort=relevance#section-name
To build this with the Uri.Builder I would do the following.
Uri.Builder builder = new Uri.Builder();
builder.scheme("https")
.authority("www.myawesomesite.com")
.appendPath("turtles")
.appendPath("types")
.appendQueryParameter("type", "1")
.appendQueryParameter("sort", "relevance")
.fragment("section-name");
String myUrl = builder.build().toString();

There is another way of using Uri and we can achieve the same goal
http://api.example.org/data/2.5/forecast/daily?q=94043&mode=json&units=metric&cnt=7
To build the Uri you can use this:
final String FORECAST_BASE_URL =
"http://api.example.org/data/2.5/forecast/daily?";
final String QUERY_PARAM = "q";
final String FORMAT_PARAM = "mode";
final String UNITS_PARAM = "units";
final String DAYS_PARAM = "cnt";
You can declare all this the above way or even inside the Uri.parse() and appendQueryParameter()
Uri builtUri = Uri.parse(FORECAST_BASE_URL)
.buildUpon()
.appendQueryParameter(QUERY_PARAM, params[0])
.appendQueryParameter(FORMAT_PARAM, "json")
.appendQueryParameter(UNITS_PARAM, "metric")
.appendQueryParameter(DAYS_PARAM, Integer.toString(7))
.build();
At last
URL url = new URL(builtUri.toString());
Source: Udacity Android course / Sunshine app

Excellent answer from above turned into a simple utility method.
private Uri buildURI(String url, Map<String, String> params) {
// build url with parameters.
Uri.Builder builder = Uri.parse(url).buildUpon();
for (Map.Entry<String, String> entry : params.entrySet()) {
builder.appendQueryParameter(entry.getKey(), entry.getValue());
}
return builder.build();
}

here is a good way to explain it:
there are two forms of the URI
1 - Builder(ready to be modified, not ready to be used)
2 - Built(not ready to be modified, ready to be used )
You can create a builder by
Uri.Builder builder = new Uri.Builder();
this gonna return a Builder ready to be modified like this:-
builder.scheme("https");
builder.authority("api.github.com");
builder.appendPath("search");
builder.appendPath("repositories");
builder.appendQueryParameter(PARAMETER_QUERY,parameterValue);
but to use it you have to build it first
retrun builder.build();
or however you gonna use it.
and then you have built that is already built for you, ready to use but cannot be modified.
Uri built = Uri.parse("your URI goes here");
this is ready to use but if you want to modify it you need to buildUpon()
Uri built = Uri.parse("Your URI goes here")
.buildUpon(); //now it's ready to be modified
.buildUpon()
.appendQueryParameter(QUERY_PARAMATER, parameterValue)
//any modification you want to make goes here
.build(); // you have to build it back cause you are storing it
// as Uri not Uri.builder
now every time you want to modify it you need to buildUpon() and in the end build().
so Uri.Builder is a Builder type that store a Builder in it.
Uri is a Built type that store an already built URI in it.
new Uri.Builder(); rerurns a Builder.
Uri.parse("your URI goes here") returns a Built.
and with build() you can change it from Builder to Built.
buildUpon() you can change it from Built to Builder.
Here is what you can do
Uri.Builder builder = Uri.parse("URL").buildUpon();
// here you created a builder, made an already built URI with Uri.parse
// and then change it to builder with buildUpon();
Uri built = builder.build();
//when you want to change your URI, change Builder
//when you want to use your URI, use Built
and also the opposite:-
Uri built = new Uri.Builder().build();
// here you created a reference to a built URI
// made a builder with new Uri.Builder() and then change it to a built with
// built();
Uri.Builder builder = built.buildUpon();
hope my answer helped :) <3

for the example in the second Answer I used this technique for the same URL
http://api.example.org/data/2.5/forecast/daily?q=94043&mode=json&units=metric&cnt=7
Uri.Builder builder = new Uri.Builder();
builder.scheme("https")
.authority("api.openweathermap.org")
.appendPath("data")
.appendPath("2.5")
.appendPath("forecast")
.appendPath("daily")
.appendQueryParameter("q", params[0])
.appendQueryParameter("mode", "json")
.appendQueryParameter("units", "metric")
.appendQueryParameter("cnt", "7")
.appendQueryParameter("APPID", BuildConfig.OPEN_WEATHER_MAP_API_KEY);
then after finish building it get it as URL like this
URL url = new URL(builder.build().toString());
and open a connection
HttpURLConnection urlConnection = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
and if link is simple like location uri, for example
geo:0,0?q=29203
Uri geoLocation = Uri.parse("geo:0,0?").buildUpon()
.appendQueryParameter("q",29203).build();

Using appendEncodePath() could save you multiple lines than appendPath(), the following code snippet builds up this url: http://api.openweathermap.org/data/2.5/forecast/daily?zip=94043
Uri.Builder urlBuilder = new Uri.Builder();
urlBuilder.scheme("http");
urlBuilder.authority("api.openweathermap.org");
urlBuilder.appendEncodedPath("data/2.5/forecast/daily");
urlBuilder.appendQueryParameter("zip", "94043,us");
URL url = new URL(urlBuilder.build().toString());

Best answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/19168199/413127
Example for
http://api.example.org/data/2.5/forecast/daily?q=94043&mode=json&units=metric&cnt=7
Now with Kotlin
val myUrl = Uri.Builder().apply {
scheme("https")
authority("www.myawesomesite.com")
appendPath("turtles")
appendPath("types")
appendQueryParameter("type", "1")
appendQueryParameter("sort", "relevance")
fragment("section-name")
build()
}.toString()

You can do that with lambda expressions;
private static final String BASE_URL = "http://api.example.org/data/2.5/forecast/daily";
private String getBaseUrl(Map<String, String> params) {
final Uri.Builder builder = Uri.parse(BASE_URL).buildUpon();
params.entrySet().forEach(entry -> builder.appendQueryParameter(entry.getKey(), entry.getValue()));
return builder.build().toString();
}
and you can create params like that;
Map<String, String> params = new HashMap<String, String>();
params.put("zip", "94043,us");
params.put("units", "metric");
Btw. If you will face any issue like “lambda expressions not supported at this language level”, please check this URL;
https://stackoverflow.com/a/22704620/2057154

Related

How to make android.net.Uri encode & between query parameters to %26

I have a Android app that needs to launch a web brower with a URL containing a query string. I build my Uri like this:
Uri uri = builder.scheme("https")
.authority("ids.example.com")
.appendPath("account")
.appendPath("login")
.appendQueryParameter("client_id", "seglaren")
.appendQueryParameter("scope", "openid email name")
.build();
and pass it to the browser using:
Intent intent = new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, uri);
startActivity(intent);
This launches the browser with the following URL:
https://ids.example.com/account/login?client_id=seglaren&scope=openid%20email%20name
The problem here is that the server I am calling does not accept this URL: it requires the separator between the query parameters to be encoded to "%26" instead of just "&". So it would need to be:
https://ids.example.com/account/login?client_id=seglaren%26scope=openid%20email%20name
How do I fix this?
Instead of .appendQueryParameter() you can use .encodedQuery().
encodedQuery() will be treated as if it is already encoded, thus not encoding it again. So you may insert your own string as you wish like in the example below.
String params = "client_id=seglaren%26scope=openid%20email%20name";
Uri uri = new Uri.Builder().scheme("https")
.authority("ids.artdatabanken.se")
.appendPath("account")
.appendPath("login")
.encodedQuery(params)
.build();
You may use string concatenation or a StringBuilder to make the String params dynamic if you don't want to keep it hardcoded.
Result
"https://ids.artdatabanken.se/account/login?client_id=seglaren%26scope=openid%20email%20name"
Note that androids Uri.Builder is doing the correct thing by adding &to the parameter. So the API you're using probably has a bug if it requires %26.

Xamarin Forms, Android and HttpClient issue

I've created in Xamarin Forms for iOS a HttpClient function to send a picture from the device to my server. The core function is
var content = new MultipartFormDataContent();
var fileContent = new ByteArrayContent(fileBytes);
fileContent.Headers.ContentType = MediaTypeHeaderValue.Parse("multipart/form-data");
fileContent.Headers.ContentDisposition = new ContentDispositionHeaderValue("attachment")
{
FileName = fName
};
fileContent.Headers.ContentDisposition.Parameters
.Add(new NameValueHeaderValue("userId", UserId.ToString()));
content.Add(fileContent);
using (var client = new HttpClient()) {
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("authenticationToken", SyncData.Token);
HttpResponseMessage response = await client.PostAsync(url, content);
if (response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
// more code
}
}
I'm using System.Net.Http. I tried to use the same function for a project in Android but surprisingly it doesn't work. The problem is in the header: if I inspect fileContent I can see every keys but for webapi on the server FileName is not received.
After some logs, I changed this function adding more client.DefaultRequestHeaders like
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Add("FileName", fName);
Now the webapi receives FileName param.
Now my question is: what did I wrong?
Personally, I use the Add method on MultipartFormDataContent that accepts a filename.
var content = new MultipartFormDataContent();
var fileContent = new ByteArrayContent(fileBytes);
...
// Use the overload Add method which accepts a file name
content.Add(fileContent, "FileName", fName);
...
I'm not sure if this will solve your problem or not, but it works for me.

How to handle ports in URI.Builder class in Android

When testing my android app in development environment, I want to connect to a server running on port 9000. But when I supply the port to Builder.authority("localhost:9000"), it does not work. On the other hand if I create the same URL by hand like new URL("localhost:9000"), it works fine.
What is the alternative?
Uri.Builder will encode your URL so that ':' is replaced by %3 .
To prevent encoding use the encoded versions of builder functions:
String host = "localhost:9000";
Uri.Builder builder = new Uri.Builder();
builder.encodedAuthority(host);
Found the solution at http://twigstechtips.blogspot.in/2011/01/android-create-url-using.html. Quoting:
Uri.Builder b = Uri.parse("http://www.yoursite.com:12345").buildUpon();
b.path("/path/to/something/");
b.appendQueryParameter("arg1", String.valueOf(42));
if (username != "") {
b.appendQueryParameter("username", username);
}
String url = b.build().toString();

Can we post/send data from Windows Forms Application to Android application?

I have my Windows Forms Application in c# 4.0, I wanted to post/send data to an android application. It need to triggered from Windows Forms.
Any one can suggest me the possible ways to do this?
Thanks & Regards.
Use the WebClient class. Depending on the "payload", you can use of of the UploadXXX methods.
For example:
string URL = "..."; //Your url here
WebClient webClient = new WebClient();
NameValueCollection formData = new NameValueCollection();
formData["Username"] = "myusername";
formData["Password"] = "mypassword";
byte[] responseBytes = webClient.UploadValues(URL, "POST", formData);
string Result = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(responseBytes);
Cheers

How can I load an image from a url into an android remote view for a widget

I have an image url I parse form json that I want to load into an android widget onto the homescreen. Right now I am trying to do it this way but its wrong:
ImageDownloadTask imageD = new ImageDownloadTask(image);
views.setImageViewBitmap(R.id.image, imageD.execute(image));
image is a string holding a url to an image that needs to be downloaded and I am trying to set it to R.id.image
I found another stack question and tried this as a result:
views.setBitmap(R.id.image, "setImageBitmap",BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new URL(image).openStream()));
And when I use that nothing in the app loads at all, none of the text views get set.
My third try was this:
//get beer data
JSONObject o = new JSONObject(result);
String name = getName(o);
String image = getImage(o);
String abv = getABV(o);
String ibu = getIBU(o);
String glass = getGlass(o);
String beerBreweryName = getBreweryName(o);
String beerBreweryStyle = getBreweryStyle(o);
String beerDescription = getDescription(o);
InputStream in = new java.net.URL(image).openStream();
Bitmap bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(in);
views.setTextViewText(R.id.beerTitle, name);
views.setTextViewText(R.id.beerBreweryName, beerBreweryName);
views.setTextViewText(R.id.beerStyleName, beerBreweryStyle);
views.setImageViewBitmap(R.id.image, bitmap);
This gave the same result as the last attempt, it would not even set any text views....
Just tried another attempt after one of the answers posted below:
RemoteViews views = new RemoteViews(c.getPackageName(), R.layout.widget_test);
//get beer data
JSONObject o = new JSONObject(result);
String name = getName(o);
String imageURL = getImage(o);
String abv = getABV(o);
String ibu = getIBU(o);
String glass = getGlass(o);
String beerBreweryName = getBreweryName(o);
String beerBreweryStyle = getBreweryStyle(o);
String beerDescription = getDescription(o);
Log.d("widgetImage" , imageURL);
views.setImageViewUri(R.id.image, Uri.parse(imageURL));
views.setTextViewText(R.id.beerTitle, name);
views.setTextViewText(R.id.beerBreweryName, beerBreweryName);
views.setTextViewText(R.id.beerStyleName, beerBreweryStyle);
mgr.updateAppWidget(appWidgetIds, views);
This attempt lets all the text views load, but no image ever shows up.
The way to do this reliably is to use setImageViewURI on the remote ImageView. The trick is that the URI you give it is a content:// URI which then points back to a content provider that you export from your application. In your content provider you can do anything you need to do to supply the image bytes.
For example, in your manifest:
<provider android:name=".ImageContentProvider" android:authorities="com.example.test" android:exported="true" />
And your provider:
public class ImageContentProvider extends ContentProvider {
// (Removed overrides that do nothing)
#Override
public ParcelFileDescriptor openFile(Uri uri, String mode) throws FileNotFoundException {
List<String> segs = uri.getPathSegments();
// Download the image content here, get the info you need from segs
return ParcelFileDescriptor.open(new File(path), ParcelFileDescriptor.MODE_READ_ONLY);
}
}
And then your URL is something like:
content://com.example.test/something-you-can-define/here
This is necessary because your remote image view is not running in your process. You are much more limited in what you can do because everything must be serialized across the process boundary. The URI can serialize just fine but if you try to send a megabyte of image data with setImageViewBitmap, it's probably going to fail (depending on available device memory).
Got a lot of help from multiple sources for this question. The big problem for me why a bunch of the attempts I tried listed above seemed to lock the widget app and not load anything is because I can not download the image and set it in a UI thread.
To accomplish this I had to move everything to the do in background of my async task and not in the onPostExecute.

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